NewsWrap
for the week ending October 7, 2000
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #654, distributed 10-09-00)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge,
Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle]
Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Chase Schulte
Namibia's Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo called on 700 new graduates
of the police academy to "eliminate" gays and lesbians. Asserting that the
"constitution does not guarantee rights for gays and lesbians," he said, "We
must make sure we eliminate them from the face of Namibia," lumping
homosexual acts with all other "unnatural acts, including murder." He said,
"Even if gays and lesbians had a gay dog they should murder it." Such
anti-gay rhetoric has resurfaced periodically since Namibian President Sam
Nujoma first made similar remarks almost four years ago. Two years ago
Ekandjo himself demanded harsh anti-gay legislation in an impassioned speech
on the floor of the parliament, but that move was blocked by Prime Minister
Hage Geingob. Ekandjo has been something of a loose cannon on some other
issues as well, and the leader of an opposition party, Katuutire Kaura of
DTA, said he would call for a vote of no confidence in the coming week to
force Ekandjo's removal from the Cabinet. Namibia's gay and lesbian Rainbow
Project rejected Ekandjo's claim they have no constitutional rights, and in
fact they are specifically protected from discrimination under the Labor
Code. Rainbow called on the government to "publicly reject" Ekandjo's
remarks, but that hasn't happened.
There may soon be a more responsive government for gays and lesbians in Sao
Paulo, Brazil's largest city. Marta Suplicy, who was the nation's most
outspoken advocate for gays and lesbians during her tenure in Brazil's House
of Deputies, was the top vote-getter for Sao Paulo mayor in this week's
elections. Although she did not get a majority of the vote and will face a
runoff in late October, she had about twice as many votes as her nearest
opponents and is expected to win. Most notably while in the Congress Suplicy
introduced a bill to give gay and lesbian couples most of the legal benefits
of marriage, but it was stalled for years by religious opposition. Sao Paulo
has the worst crime statistics in the Americas, including a recent resurgence
of Neo-Nazi groups particularly targeting gays and lesbians and their allies.
U.S. activists against hate violence suffered a crushing blow this week
when a House-Senate conference committee dropped a Senate rider from a
defense spending measure. The amendment would have established what has been
known as the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a measure to add sexual orientation,
gender and disability as protected categories under federal hate crimes law.
It would also greatly expand the situations in which federal authorities
could investigate and prosecute hate crimes, primarily in support of local
authorities. The hate crimes measure has long had the vocal advocacy of
President Bill Clinton, has solid majority support in both the House and
Senate, and according to polls is favored by about two-thirds of the public,
yet Republican leaders have continued to block its progress. Democrats have
vowed to use every possible procedural maneuver to achieve passage before the
Congress adjourns later this month. More likely the measure's future will
depend on the outcome of November elections. Democratic Presidential nominee
Vice President Al Gore supports the bill while Republican nominee Texas
Governor George W. Bush does not believe that bias-motivated crimes should be
treated differently from others.
The loss of the hate crimes amendment was particularly bitter coming on the
heels of the mass shooting in a gay-friendly Roanoke, Virginia bar that left
one dead and six injured. The suspect, Ronald Gay, allegedly told a witness
beforehand that he was going to "waste some fags." This week a grand jury
indicted him on six charges of aggravated malicious wounding and seven
firearms charges, which could add 180 years to a possible life sentence for
first-degree murder in the death of gay Danny Overstreet. The last of the
other six shooting victims has been released from the hospital after almost
two weeks.
But gay and lesbian activists did have something to celebrate this week as
"Dr. Laura" Schlessinger's new syndicated TV show was dropped by its Canadian
broadcasters. The top-rated radio talk show host's move to the small screen
has been vigorously protested all year because of her descriptions of gays
and lesbians as "deviant," "a biological error," "abnormal," "aberrant,"
"disordered," and "dysfunctional," and her assertion that many gay men are
pedophiles. Earlier this year industry watchdog the Canadian Broadcast
Standards Council issued a scathing critique against her radio program,
calling her "abusively discriminatory" in breach of the national broadcasting
code. But none of that had anything to do with the four CanWest Global
stations in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec dropping the show,
something no U.S. station has done yet. It was painfully low ratings that
led to Schlessinger's Canadian TV demise -- less than one-half of one percent
of households in Ontario and BC, less than one-third of what CanWest had
anticipated. A corporate spokesperson said, "Essentially, you can't have a
show on the air if nobody watches it." Schlessinger's TV show has tanked in
U.S. ratings as well, but most of its carriers are bound by contract to
continue it.
Schlessinger believes that homosexual orientation can be changed to
heterosexual, a belief not shared by the American Psychological Association
and other leading professional groups, but one cherished fervently by Exodus
International. That umbrella association of "conversion" programs was
profoundly embarrassed when its high-profile "ex-gay" poster boy John Paulk
was spotted and photographed in a gay bar last month. Paulk had been serving
as board chair of Exodus North America, but this week the board removed him
as chair and placed him on "probationary" status. Although technically he
will still be listed as a board member, he will not be allowed to vote or
even to attend meetings. Just to retain that ceremonial status he will have
to undergo quarterly reviews on criteria, which have not been made public.
Paulk compounded his problems by at first lying to both the board and
reporters, claiming he hadn't known it was a gay bar but was only looking for
a bathroom. He soon confessed to the board that he had known it was a gay
bar when he went in, but he said he was not looking for sex, and the board
believes him. Paulk has been employed by religious right media powerhouse
Focus on the Family as its manager of homosexuality and gender issues. He
still has a job there but has been suspended from leading its travelling
"Love Won Out" seminars.
Britain's opposition Conservative Party held its annual convention this
week, with high hopes of regaining power in next year's elections. To the
astonishment of many, party spokesperson on economic affairs Michael Portillo
included in his major address a statement that the party is "for all people
whatever their sexual orientation." It was a surprising statement about the
party and even more surprising coming from Portillo. Before his re-entry
into politics late last year, he sought to quash rumors by revealing that he
had had affairs with men before his entry into public life and marriage.
He's hardly spoken publicly on gay and lesbian issues since being returned to
Parliament and elevated to his current status on the party's front bench.
His remark was in line with Conservative Parliamentary Leader William Hague's
hope of expanding the party's voter base, a hope which led to the appointment
of Conservative champion of gay and lesbian rights Stephen Norris as party
vice chair. But Portillo's remark did not elicit applause.
Gerald Howarth, Conservative chair of the Parliament's Family and Child
Protection Group, later maintained that the party has "always been tolerant"
of gays and lesbians, while staunchly maintaining his defense of Section 28,
that Thatcher-era prohibition against local governments devoting resources to
the "promotion of homosexuality." Norris fired back that to say the party
has "always been tolerant" of gays and lesbians is "naive and downright
stupid" and that the party's defense of Section 28 is "homophobic nonsense."
At a conference fringe meeting party spokesperson on foreign affairs
Francis Maude said that, "Too many gay people have been put off by the
publicity given to our position on Section 28." But he too staunchly
supports Section 28 -- his point was that, "If we make that case in a way
that appears to be more about hostility to homosexuality than about the
protection of children, we risk making a significant minority of the
population feel that we are simply not for them.
Meanwhile, Section 28's fierce defender in the House of Lords Janet Young,
Baroness of Farnworth, told another conference fringe meeting the party must
make a commitment to keeping the clause and to keeping the age of consent for
sex between men at 18, rather than matching it with the heterosexual age of
consent of 16. She also stated clearly that what she called "a single sex
relationship" does not constitute a family, which she defines as husband and
wife, with or without children.
In winding up the conference, Hague himself made an applause-winning
statement of support for Section 28, and showed that he makes no connection
between tolerance and policy. In a remark understood to refer specifically
to gay and lesbian activists, he said, "Refusing simply to accept every
demand from every pressure group is not in contradiction with respecting the
differences between individuals; on the contrary, the championing of
mainstream values is the championing of tolerance, mutual respect and the
rich diversity of our country."
And finally, the Tory conference was the subject of a particularly
hilarious sketch in the "London Times" by openly gay columnist Matthew
Parris. Parris particularly tweaked the party's candidate to represent
Henley in Parliament, Boris Johnson, for how often he appears "momentarily
flustered." As Parris tells it, at one point there was a sort of
brainstorming session in which party chair Michael Ancram "challenged each
speaker to name one brave, unpopular thing William Hague should do."
Momentarily flustered, Johnson spluttered, "Wear a dress?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE ISSUE OF SAME-GENDER MARRIAGE GOT A BRIEF MOMENT IN THE SPOTLIGHT OF THE
U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ON OCTOBER 5th DURING THE ONE AND ONLY DEBATE
BETWEEN THE DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES FOR VICE PRESIDENT,
CONNECTICUT SENATOR JOSEPH LIEBERMAN AND FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY RICHARD
CHENEY. LIEBERMAN FOCUSED ON HIS RECORD OF SUPPORT FOR GAY AND LESBIAN
RIGHTS, AND WHILE HAVING NO POSITIVE RECORD TO CITE, CHENEY ALSO FAILED TO
MENTION HIS LESBIAN DAUGHTER MARY. AND NEITHER NOTED THAT THE QUESTION POSED
BY THE MODERATOR, CNN'S BERNARD SHAW, WAS SOMEWHAT BROADER THAN THE ANSWERS
THEY GAVE...
SHAW: Senator, sexual orientation -- should a male who loves a male, and a
female who loves a female, have all, all the constitutional rights enjoyed by
every American citizen?
LIEBERMAN: A very current and difficult question, and I've been thinking
about it and I want to explain what my thoughts have been. Maybe I should
begin this answer by going back to the beginning of the country and the
Declaration of Independence, which says right there at the outset that all of
us are created equal and that we're endowed, not by any bunch of politicians
or philosophers, but by our creator, with those inalienable rights to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. At the beginning of our history that
promise, that ideal, was not realized or experienced by all Americans, but
over time, since then, we have extended the orbit of that promise. And in our
time, at the frontier of that effort is extending those kinds of rights to
gay and lesbian Americans who are citizens of this country and children of
the same awesome God just as much as any of the rest of us are. That's why I
have been an original co-sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,
which, which aims to prevent gay and lesbian Americans who are otherwise
qualified from being discriminated against in a workplace. And I've sponsored
other pieces of legislation and other, taken other actions that, that carry
out that ideal.
The question you pose is a difficult one for this reason: It confronts or
challenges the traditional notion of marriage as being limited to a
heterosexual couple, which I support. But I must say I'm thinking about this
because I have friends who are in gay and lesbian partnerships who've said to
me isn't it unfair that we don't have similar legal rights to inheritance, to
visitation when one of the partners is ill, to health care benefits? And
that's why I'm thinking about it and my mind is open to taking some action
that will address those elements of unfairness, while respecting the
traditional religious and civil institution of marriage.
SHAW: Mr. Secretary?
CHENEY: This is a tough one, Bernie. The fact of the matter is we live in a
free society and freedom means freedom for everybody. We don't get to choose
and shouldn't be able to choose and say you get to live free, but you don't.
And I think that means that people should be free to enter into any kind of
relationship they want to enter into. It's really no one else's business in
terms of trying to regulate or prohibit behavior in that regard. The next
step then of course is the question you ask of whether or not there ought to
be some kind of official sanction if you will of the relationship or if these
relationships should be treated the same way a conventional marriage is.
That's a tougher problem. That's not a slam-dunk. I think the fact of the
matter of course is that matters regulated by the states, I think different
states are likely to come to different conclusions and that's appropriate. I
don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area. I try
to be open-minded about it as much as I can and tolerant of those
relationships and like Joe, I also wrestle with the extent of which there
ought to be legal sanction of those relationships. I think we ought to do
everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships
people want to enter into.
THAT WAS REPUBLICAN DICK CHENEY AND DEMOCRAT JOE LIEBERMAN DURING THEIR
NATIONALLY-TELEVISED VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES DEBATE, SEEN -- ACCORDING
TO NEILSEN RATINGS REPORTED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES – BY OVER 28 MILLION
VIEWERS.